Aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and its Relation to Hinayana c5.s3.t3.1.2

c5.s3.t3.1.2

He tells us further that about the time of Kaniṣka, the brahmin Kulika of Saurāṣṭra invited the Sthavira and Arahanta Nanda, a native of Aṅga, who had comprehended the Mahāyāna teaching in order to hear from him the new teaching.¹ The only point that deserves notice is the use of the appellations, Arahanta and Sthavira, indicating that Nanda was a Hīnayānist monk who had comprehended the Mahāyāna teaching. The remark of Tāranātha that monks who had attained Anutpattikadharmakṣānti preached also Mahāyāna shows that there was a class of Hīnayāna monks who had been propagating the Mahāyāna teaching.² Then the association of Odivisa with the beginning of Mahāyāna teaching, and of the monk Nanda with Aṅga suggest that we should look for the origin of Mahāyāna somewhere in the east. A passage occurring in all the Prajñāpāramitās partially lends support to the statement of Tāranātha. The passage says that Mahāyāna teaching will originate in the south (Dakṣiṇāpatha), pass to the eastern countries (Vartanyām),³ and prosper in the north. Evidently, this statement of the Prajñāpāramitās was written while the work was compiled in the north after the Mahāyāna teaching had been effectively propagated there. We may substantiate this statement by pointing to the Tibetan tradition about the existence of a Prajñāpāramitā in the Prākṛt dialect belonging to the Śaila schools, the centre of which was in the south (Guntur District).